Posts tagged ‘jay leno’

I’ve been a fan of Conan O’Brien since one late summer night in 1998, so technically this falls under nostalgia…? Yeah, I know, bit of a stretch. Anyway, like many others, I was outraged and saddened at what happened to him this past January. (And I never liked Leno even before all this mess.)

This post actually comes straight outta my Livejournal, but since few of you here have access to that, I’m re-posting it here. I just want to make my opinion on the matter a little more widely known, I suppose. (Plus, hey, it’s content! Can’t complain about that, right?)

I am getting tired of people saying they have no sympathy for Conan O’Brien because NBC gave him millions in severance pay. Money, money, money– who cares? Ever stop to think that things aren’t always just about the money? NBC did wrong by him. Period. Also don’t forget the part where he was paying his employees out of his own pocket.

I think people don’t realize how hard a job it would be to be on television five nights a week. Think about it. You don’t just sit in a chair and talk to people. There’s a lot of stress and time and work involved, so I think television workers and actors deserve to get paid a lot of money, because you can’t just hire average Joe off the street to do jobs like that. It takes experience, knowledge, and talent. I do think that some performers are overpaid *coughlenocough* but in general, they don’t have an easy job so they deserve some monetary compensation.

THAT BEING SAID, it’s clear Conan was not just in it for the money. Obviously it didn’t matter to him that much because he was content to give quite a bit of it away to his staff. Forget the 45 million dollars and just think of it this way: The man worked hard for years and was given his dream job, and then was betrayed and had it taken away from him. Just think about how you’d feel if that happened to you. Would the 45 mil really be all that much of a comfort?

I guess I’m just tired of people being a bunch of cynical, jealous assholes. People think performers and other rich people should be happy and joyful and are not allowed to have any problems whatsoever just because they have boocoos of money. Look at all the celebrities that end up destroying themselves– money does not solve all problems and it does not buy happiness. You’d think people would’ve figured that shit out by now.

At least Conan’s touring the country, and making a triumphant return to TV this fall on TBS, and he’ll be on 60 Minutes tomorrow night– can’t wait to see that interview. So things are definitely looking up for him in spite of all this crap, and I’m glad.